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New Year's Dash just wrapped up, and interestingly enough there wasn't a single member of The Elite appearing at the show. Hopefully that doesn't mean anything and that whatever All Elite Wrestling turns out to be, it involves New Japan.

EDIT: Now there's news that Kenny Omega is either taking a break from New Japan or is done with New Japan for the time being. No one seems to be sure if that means he'll take a few months off like he did a few years ago, or if he's going to head towards AEW or WWE at this point. It'll be an interesting story for sure.

It's also confirmed that KUSHIDA is leaving New Japan. There's still no official word as to where he's headed but from what I gather there's a strong indication he might be WWE-bound.

Ugh. Sadly, I'm sure KUSHIDA will wind up as just another guy on 205 Live, but if that is what he wants I certainly don't fault him for it. I really do hope Kenny isn't going the WWE route as well.

After checking out his presser, I'm not buying that Omega is completely leaving NJPW (whether that means he is going to spend some time with AEW or just taking a leave for a few months, who knows, but WWE obviously wouldn't be an option if that is the direction he is taking).

I've been arguing for awhile that they should have bumped KUSHIDA up to the heavies, god knows he's good enough for it. Don't know if it'd have made a difference on him leaving but still wish they'd have done it.

New Year's Dash just wrapped up, and interestingly enough there wasn't a single member of The Elite appearing at the show. Hopefully that doesn't mean anything and that whatever All Elite Wrestling turns out to be, it involves New Japan.

I think they're probably hedging their bets. There's supposed to be the AEW/ROH/NJPW meeting coming up, isn't there? New Japan probably figures that there's no point in using or promoting them if they aren't sure they're going to work with them going forward.

I was surprised at all the AEW name dropping in Cody's WK match to be honest.

EDIT: Kenny's statement feels like a little bit of a work to me. He's stepping away because he can't work under Tanahashi, the guy that he apparently hates? That feels like he wants to take some time away, and is using that as a reason.

Maybe he did get a great WWE offer and he's considering that, so using his animosity with Tanahashi has the reason for him to be taking other offers. But it just seems like he wants some time off to R&R (he got pretty banged up this year and worked the G1 through a number of injuries apparently) and this is as good a time, and reason, as any.

The word is that Kenny is indeed leaving but that he's going to AEW, not WWE. Apparently the meeting between AEW, New Japan and ROH ended with New Japan deciding to stick with Ring of Honor, thus (for now) ending the prospect of an AEW/New Japan agreement. It's left Kenny with the choice between home (Japan, where he is a citizen now), money (WWE) and loyalty and he's decided to stick with the Bucks and Cody, which isn't surprising given that all the Elite guys have said they're sticking together (save Marty, who probably will join him when his deal is up too). It's not official and Big Dave is saying things are changing by the minute (who knows what that means) but he also all but inferred that Kenny is AEW bound and today's Being the Elite ends with his lost phone beginning to count down to the end of his deal just like the Bucks, Cody and Hangman's phones did (the Bucks, Cody and Hangman also signed deals in this video that they claimed were for five years). A massive change would need to happen for him to either go to WWE or return to New Japan, meaning you can expect Kenny to be AEW full time and their number one draw immediately.

Its also been stated elsewhere, not reported, but that AEW doesn't even have plans for TV until June. The NJPW/ROH supershow is in April... So i could see where NJPW sticks with ROH until the summer. They didn't bury Kenny on his way out.

Wow, losing Kenny is a huge hit to their western plans. I'm one of those fans that ha tacked on in the last year and the number one reason was Kenny Omega. I like some of the other guys for sure and have enjoyed watching them wrestle but he is the one who I have an emotional attachment to.

Counterpoint is, you can't rely on one guy for your success in one market cause one way or the other, that time is going to come to an end. Are they ready with a new top western star now? No but i'm sure they'll find one if its not Kenny.

But how long is that going to take, and who is that? They're in the middle of a potentially lucrative US expansion, and if they don't have that star it could very well flop like every other time they've tried. I guess it comes down to whether Kenny and the Bucks got eyeballs on the product that became invested in other people, or if it was just a bunch of people in Bullet Club shirts who will stay home now. Sales for the third show that they added will be really telling, I think.

I'm not going to tune out because those guys are gone. Personally, Naito is still my favourite wrestler in the world and I'd tune in just to see him. I also love Juice and Jay White (I think that those are your two money Western stars and they'll have a chance to prove it now that Kenny is gone, by the way).

However, that's me. I do think that there's a pretty decent chunk of people who were at that long beach show who were there because Bullet Club and Kenny were the cool thing.

From new reports, it looks like NJPW is trying real hard to keep Kenny and work with AEW... which tells me they will leave the ROH partnership after the MSG show.. Kinda like I thought they would anyway.

So that makes it rather moot if they can still have Kenny for the G1 show. One of the issues I had and I know others had though was that New Japan was trying to expand but they weren't having shows over here that were that important. It helped that Kenny was on top sure but going into the long beach show, you started to here grumblings that NJPW just putting on a show here wasn't enough anymore. I think they realized that and that's why there's a G1 show in Dallas.

Also, Ospreay will probably get a major push now regardless if Kenny stays or not. So you got Jay White, Juice, and Ospreay.

I agree. When I read that NJPW was sticking with ROH and not AEW, at least for now, I said, "Of course they will for now. They already have the MSG show booked with ROH; they aren't going to end that partnership until that show is over." What I don't understand is why they can't all work together. The Elite all have a great relationship with ROH and even if they are technically going to be competitors, the future of pro wrestling is not in competition; it's in collaboration. Eventually something will be worked out and they will all work together. If not, ROH will be the ones on the outside looking in and they can't afford to be in that position when the hottest indy stars in the industry are nearly all with AEW now.

I agree. When I read that NJPW was sticking with ROH and not AEW, at least for now, I said, "Of course they will for now. They already have the MSG show booked with ROH; they aren't going to end that partnership until that show is over." What I don't understand is why they can't all work together. The Elite all have a great relationship with ROH and even if they are technically going to be competitors, the future of pro wrestling is not in competition; it's in collaboration. Eventually something will be worked out and they will all work together. If not, ROH will be the ones on the outside looking in and they can't afford to be in that position when the hottest indy stars in the industry are nearly all with AEW now.

I think its more of an ROH issue.. I've also heard though that Khan might not be the easiest to deal with. The thing is, if AEW wants to be the number 2 promotion in the country, running on major tv, its not going to really make sense to work with ROH and help ROH with their product as well. I also don't think the demand is there to support 4 semi to important wrestling companies. I mean at a touring level.

Also, if AEW is really providing health care, it makes even less sense for promotions to work together.

NJPW

I know nothing of it. Having said that, I'd like to watch this year's Wrestle Kingdom 13 show that just happened to submerge into it. Though there's a catch- I don't want it in English. I know other wrestling sites are no nos, but is there someone out there that can potentially message me with a solid, potentially free link?

Edit- sorry mods, I appear to have guy vision today. This should be in the other sub forum

Sorry I don't know of any - and my guess is that no one has answered because the relative affordability of NJPW World (what is it, about $7?) means that most people who are interested in this are already signed up, so there's just less trade in cheap links than their used to be.

The best I can suggest is going through the whole Russian version of Youtube, like people still do for a lot of the smaller Japanese promotions, if you don't wanna sign up.